by Sarah Rayne
The rats were still coming, squeaking in their eagerness, tumbling over one another, their hard little claws ringing out on the bare stone floor, their eyes red and greedy. Their long tails twitched and slithered after them, and they made darting, scuttling, little movements across the floor.
The Miller gave a great bellowing cry, and sagged at the knees, and at once the rats were upon him, swarming up his body, clinging to him with bared teeth, clawing and scratching. Joanna stood transfixed with astonishment, because although she did not like rats — nobody could like them — she was not especially afraid.
Cormac was not afraid of the rats either, although he glanced uneasily at the young man with the reed pipes, and memories of the old gods of the Greeks stirred in his mind. He reached through the bars of the cage to where the keys lay, dropped in fright by the Miller, and he unlocked the cage and stood for a moment, flexing his entire body, exulting in the freedom after confinement. He made no attempt to touch Joanna or to speak to her, and Joanna knew that Cormac understood about the cloak. The creatures before them had been summoned by the cloak’s magic; only by the strongest of concentration could Joanna keep that magic alive, and only by sheer force of will could she keep the young man and the music and the rats there with them.
The Miller had backed into a corner now; he was blubbering with fear and he was disgusting and revolting and not the least bit pitiable. The rats made a concerted lunge for him, and the Miller fell again to his knees, and then curled himself into a tight ball, covering his head with his hands. Joanna thought: I don’t understand this. Why does he not simply use his great strength to throw them off? He could pick them up one by one between his fingers and hurl them against the wall. And although her stomach lifted at the thought, and although she could imagine with a shudder how the plump furry bodies would feel and the dreadful soft squelch they would make when they hit the wall, still she thought she could have done it. Anything other than be clawed and bitten and chewed in a hundred different places. Disgusting! thought Joanna, and then, through the wall of concentration she was still maintaining, she caught the tail end of a thought from Cormac: the Giant Miller is too afraid of them to do anything. They — and the Piper — mean something unendurable to him.
The Miller’s great bulk was twitching and jerking, and blood was seeping through his clothes. But the rats were avid. They jostled for places and they scuttled about their victim and bared their teeth at one another, and all the time there was the gnawing, nibbling, sucking sound.
And then, at length, there was a choking cough, like dead dry twigs being rattled in a dark place, and the Miller drew a long bubbling breath and lay still. As the rats became quiescent, Joanna glimpsed what she had been trying hard not to see: the crater-like wounds, the gaping jagged hole that had been the Miller’s throat, the deep dark bloodied sockets that had been his eyes, and the gleam of white bone … liver and kidneys … raw stringlike muscles … She shuddered and gulped, and looked away, and as she did so, the young man with the pipes ceased playing.
Cormac moved forward very cautiously, and Joanna thought that he was trying to absorb the young man’s scent, and that he was puzzled by it. Why? Because it was an alien scent? Or — and this was rather worrying — because there was no scent there?
At length, Cormac said, “Who and what are you?”
The young man smiled and his face changed. Joanna and Cormac relaxed for the first time in many hours.
“I am a being from the Giant’s nightmares,” he said, and his voice was low and blurred with amusement, so that the other two thought he might be rather fun to know.
“Is that why he was so afraid?”
“Yes. I am the god of fear, but I am the god of many other things as well,” said the young man, and Joanna, her mind reaching into the almost-lost lore of her own world, said, half disbelieving, “Pan?”
“I have answered to that name,” said the young man gravely and then laughed and slipped from his bench seat and held out a hand to each of them. “My name has been given to your word for great fear, but I am known for many other things. I answer to many names and I have lived many lives, and I have my place in all the creeds and all the legends of the world.”
“Are you from the past?” said Cormac cautiously, for his own sorcerers had occasionally been able to summon shadowy figures from the long-ago.
“I am from both the past and the future,” said the young man, “for I can travel through the Time Curtain at will, and I have appeared in many different centuries. I am ageless and timeless, and I am possessed of all the virtues and most of the sins.” He leaned closer and his eyes slanted. “Fear I am, and Lust. Anger I am and Despair.” He smiled, and the sly glint vanished. “But I am also Love and Gaiety and Wine, and I am also Laughter and Revelry. I am sometimes known as the god of music, but also I am the shepherd boy who dwells in the forests and the fields, and lures victims with music so sweet it would melt your soul to hear it.” He looked at them, and Joanna thought: it is impossible the number of times his face changes. “Once,” said the young man, “I was a Thracian poet called Orpheus, and in that incarnation, I made music so beautiful and so precious that I came within a batswing brush of charming the keepers of the underworld to give me back my lady. For I am jealous of those I own.
“But I am also the Piper, the sinister musician who lives in the Mountains, and who lures into his lair the children of the world.
“In another time — long after your time, Wolfking, and long before yours, Human Child — I shall be a Ratcatcher.
“I shall live in a place called Hamelin, and I shall draw from the city the rats.
“And it is that incarnation that was the Miller’s nightmare. It is as the Piper of Hamelin I have haunted his sleep, and it was as the Piper of Hamelin I appeared to him tonight.”
They were all seated together now, the Miller’s body stiffening and congealing where it lay, the rats drowsy and replete. Joanna relaxed her hold slightly on the cloak’s power, and the young man said sharply, “Do not let me go, Human Child. If you wish to talk a little longer,” and Joanna frowned and summoned up her willpower again.
Cormac said, “Are you then bound to obey the cloak’s command?”
“I am compelled. While its enchantment calls to me, I am constrained to answer.”
“Will you stay and talk with us? Just for a short while?”
“I must do so if you wish it. Whoever wears the Nightcloak of Dierdriu may summon the creatures of nightmares.” He leaned forward and there was a light and a gleam in his eyes that made Joanna jump and think: he is very beautiful, but I believe he is quite soulless. The young man said softly and slyly, “Perhaps you also may one day find yourself bound to answer the Nightcloak’s summoning, Wolfking.”
“I?”
“But yes,” said the young man, sitting back and regarding Cormac with malicious amusement. “You are part man, part wolf. There may be a time when such a creature will play a part in the folklore and the legend of the day.” He smiled, and again it was the “what fools these mortals be” smile. “You will see,” said Pan.
Cormac frowned, but said, “Why was the Miller so afraid? Why did he allow the rats to overpower him so easily?”
“He knew what had happened,” said Pan. “He knew of the Piper, for the legend has echoed back in time as well as forward. He knew that one day I would walk through the streets of Hamelin, calling to the rats.” Again he leaned forward, so that the flickering candlelight illuminated his features. “All Millers are afraid of rats, for rats are the greatest of all threats to them. Have you never seen oats houses built on stilts so that the rats cannot get in and infest the flour bins? And the Miller of Muileann knew that once the rats had answered my music, once they had fallen into line behind me as I walked through Hamelin, I must bring them somewhere.” The smile was gentler this time, but still Joanna shivered. “He has dreamt of this night for longer than you can imagine,” said Pan. “He has dreamt that I would lead the
rats of Hamelin through the Time Curtain, and that between us we would destroy him. He has woken afraid and trembling that I will appear and ruin his Mill, and once his Mill is ruined, he is at the Erl-King’s mercy. And even I,” said Pan thoughtfully, “would hesitate to provoke the Erl-King. But you see? That is why he was so easily overpowered. It was not the rats who killed him but his own frenzied fear.”
“Pan-ic,” said Joanna, suddenly understanding, and the young man smiled approvingly.
“Of course,” he stood up and looked down on them. “You have a journey.”
“Yes.”
He turned to Joanna. “Will you let me go now, Human Child?”
“Yes.”
“You may see me again,” said Pan. “Perhaps not in these lives, but in others. I am to be found in all the centuries. Sometimes you will have to look hard, in order to recognise me, but be assured I will be there.”
“Lust and Fear and Greed,” said Joanna, and Pan touched her face lightly.
“Yes.”
“Did you — forgive me — but did you walk abroad in the days when the Apocalypse burned the world?” She thought she ought not really to have asked, and she could not imagine what the answer might be.
But Pan declined to answer the question. He smiled and touched her face again and said, “I am also the god of Laughter and Music and Wine. And there has always been room for both sides of me, only that in some centuries men allow Lust and Greed to cloud their minds and their judgements. Remember that I am also the god of Love.”
And then Joanna let go of the cloak’s power, and she and Cormac were alone in the dungeon.
*
Nothing had ever tasted so good as the cold night air outside Morrigan’s house.
“Night again,” observed Dubhgall lugubriously, and Gormgall laughed.
“Your temper is not spoilt by your incarceration, friend.”
“It doesn’t do to take too optimistic a view of anything,” said Dubhgall stubbornly, and Cormac said, “Oh dear,” and winked at Joanna. Dubhgall said it was all very well to be cheerful and cut capers and cock snooks, and thumb noses at the Miller and the Morrigna. “But what I say, Your Majesty, is that we aren’t out of the woods yet. Not in a pig’s eye, we aren’t!”
“But Gallan —” started Joanna, and Dubhgall said, “Always supposing we reach it,” and Gormgall said, “Why shouldn’t we reach it?”
“There’s no knowing,” said Dubhgall darkly. “But there’s mountains to cross yet, and we all know what kind of creatures live in mountains.”
“I don’t,” said Joanna and Gormgall said soothingly, “Nothing so very terrible, my lady.”
“And then there’s the forest,” went on Dubhgall. “Mark my words, Sire, we’ve got a fair way to go yet.”
Cormac laughed and clapped Dubhgall on the back. “For the time being,” he said, “we are free and we have come safely through Muileann, and that in itself is something to be thankful for. Onwards to Gallan now, to Cait Fian’s house.”
“At least it’ll be warm there,” put in Gormgall.
“And there’ll be decent food to eat,” said Joanna.
“If we don’t get eaten first,” muttered Dubhgall, but he said it quietly so that no one heard.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Flynn and Amairgen had been wined and dined and fêted. They had been talked to, and they had been sung to — “And sung at” said Flynn — and now their minds were filled to dizzying point with the beauty and the colour and the brilliance of the Sun Chamber.
They were both very tired. Even so, thought Flynn, I am at home here. I am in my rightful place. And he looked with renewed interest at these people who should have been alien but were not, and at these sights which should have been unfamiliar, but which were very familiar and very comfortable. I belong here. And then he thought — if Joanna was here with me I believe I should know a truly perfect contentment. And despite the tiredness, despite the aching fatigue, he whipped up his mind to remain alert, for it was not to be thought of that he should miss any opportunity to find out if Joanna had found her way to Tara. I dare not relax for the briefest instant, thought Flynn.
Eochaid Bres had been regally welcoming, and Bricriu, whom Amairgen thought must be some kind of chamberlain, had been cautiously welcoming. The woman had eyed Flynn and the scholars had been drawn to Amairgen, and Sean the Storyteller had staged an impromptu entertainment about two travellers passing through strange and exotic lands to reach the Plain of Delight. “Merely a little thing that came to me as we sat at supper, Your Majesty,” he said with a self-deprecatory air, but later on, when Flynn asked if that had been true, Sean had said at once, “No, of course not. You didn’t truly think it was, did you? Did you? Well, I put it to you, could anyone have staged all that on the inspiration of the moment? I keep a half a dozen or so things all ready and rehearsed, you never know what might be needed. I’m supposed to provide the King’s entertainment; well, that’s throwing roses at it, because the King isn’t at all easy to entertain, he’s a terrible old way of missing all the humour, although it’d be the Miller’s cages for me if anyone heard me say it. Still, he’ll never know it wasn’t spur of the moment stuff, and I shan’t tell him. I certainly shan’t tell Bricriu the Fox.”
Bricriu, the King’s chamberlain, had been as smooth as oil to them; he had led them to seats at the High Table, and called for fresh food and flagons of wine to be brought. “I shall be incapable if I drink all that,” thought Flynn, half horrified, half delighted, but he drank it all the same, and was not in the least incapable.
Bricriu had engaged them in conversation, while Eochaid Bres looked on and nodded from time to time. As if, thought Flynn, he does so to show he understands what we are talking about.
“And,” said Bricriu, “when you are rested, you must tell us of your travels, for we shall be very interested,” and Eochaid Bres nodded solemnly. Flynn and Amairgen shared a sudden thought: if we told them the truth they would certainly not believe us!
They partook cautiously of the food, which was like nothing either of them had ever tasted before. “But it is all very good,” said Flynn hungrily, reaching out his hand, and Sean the Storyteller said, awed, “You’re not having another helping, are you?” and was frowned at by the King, who knew that it was ill-bred to comment on a guest’s appetite, but who was rather pleased to see Flynn eating so heartily, because it meant that Eochaid Bres could help himself to another plateful of pork pudding without anyone really noticing. He was very fond of pork pudding, for all that Bricriu said it made you liverish. Eochaid was not liverish in the least, or not very much anyway.
After they had eaten, it seemed to be expected that they should move from the table and mingle with the Court. Flynn looked about him and thought: if I am careful, I may be able to fall into conversation with some of the younger ones. They will surely know if Joanna has been here. Won’t they? And he remembered Joanna’s curious blend of great fragility and immense strength, and thought that even here, even surrounded by these strange and exotic creatures, Joanna would stand out. Yes, certainly if she had been here they would remember her. He looked warily to where some of the younger ones were foregathering and smiling at him in a welcoming way, and then moved to accept the chair that was being indicated, and to take the wine that was being offered.
At the back of his mind, a spurt of humour arose, so that he wondered whether, if he did find out about Joanna, he would be sufficiently sober to make any sense of the information. He wondered how Amairgen was faring, and saw that he had fallen quite naturally into discourse with the Councillors. How strange, thought Flynn, that he gravitates so easily into the company of leaders. Or is it?
Amairgen was talking to the Councillors quite naturally and relaxedly, finding them courteous and interesting, and rather scholarly. He chose his words with care, because he wanted to find out more about this place, and he listened with genuine interest to what they had to say. Once or twice he wondered how Flynn was get
ting on, and smiled inwardly to see that several of the ladies were already grouped about him. The boy had caused a strong ripple in this rather rarefied atmosphere; Amairgen had seen the females sit up and eye one another, and the lady they called Mab had been watching Flynn ever since they had arrived. Amairgen wondered if Flynn was aware of his attractiveness, and then thought he was not. He thought that it was probably part of Flynn’s charm, and he began to be very curious indeed about Joanna. Flynn would obviously brave all of the dangers in the world for Joanna, and so Amairgen thought that she must surely be something very exceptional. He was pleased for Flynn, because he was beginning to think that Flynn, also, might be something very exceptional. Because he is Finn of the Fiana returned? said the depths of his mind. And then, no — because he is himself! Amairgen smiled and turned back to his own table.
The Councillors were informative; they were charmed to tell this polite, rather grave, stranger about Tara and about their customs. Wasn’t it the grandest thing in the world to be able to talk for a while without watching every word you said, and wasn’t it altogether great to indulge in a bit of harmless nostalgia. It crossed the minds of a couple of them that Amairgen might be one of Eochaid Bres’s spies; it certainly crossed the minds of several more that he might be one of Bricriu’s, for there was no knowing what complexities of intrigue the Fox might stoop to. But they dismissed these suspicions fairly quickly. Some of them possessed a smattering of the Samhailt, although naturally no one would have admitted to it under Eochaid Bres’s rule, and they all, within the first five minutes of meeting him, knew that Amairgen was no spy.
They told him about Tara, how it had been raised from the rock, and how it had been the finest Court ever to come into the western world. They told him about Dierdriu of the Nightcloak, and how she had bargained with the sorcerers and the magicians to make the Sun Chamber.